The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-09-10
Written Jor The .frkanSaw Trdreler. LONDON CORRESPOND
 ENCE.
BY HAL BERTE.

The unanimous invitation of the free and enlightened citizens of the United States to contribute to your columns all occasional letter in my recherche style on the topics of the day has reached me, and I hasten to respond ia mode.
 The jubilee festivities are over at last for which heaven be thanked. There are very few people who wish to see another jubilee, unless perhaps it be few insignificant mayors of provincial towns who are on the qu cacc for a kaighthood or any other gew-gaw honor which they may have chance of drawing in the great court lottery of Queen Victoria. Many of these men have been so honored re- gently, but we look in vain down the lists for any indication that the true worth of genius embodied in the rep- resentatives of science, art and litera- ture have been honored in a like man. ner. The fat, indolent, semi educated, h-dropping butterman takes the hon. Ors, while the eminent man of letters is left out in the cold. Our Salas and Irvings are passed over as so many nonentities, while the unlettered Job sons of obscure boroughs are Sir'd M eftenSo. It is good thing that genius, like virtue, is to some extent its own reward, or those who DOS sessed it would come very badly off in England
 The curtain of the jubilee drama has fallen upon a grand naval tableau, which ought to make other nations who do not possess a huge sea arma- ment, thank God for it. It is one thing to possess these immense float ing engines of war and quite another to manage them properly. do not mean to insinuate that on the whole our ships were not handled in good style, but certain possibilities, the re- verse Of cheering, are furnished by the accidents which happened at the very outset when series of collisions re- suited in serious damage to the collid- ing vessels. It seems to me that a greater weapon is in the hands of a foe than these great unwieldy and un- der certain conditions unmanageable floating batteries. The Spanish Ar mada was annihilated by the storm tiend, and these giants of our navy would founder like so many cookie shells under the same conditions. I would not give fig for the chances of the most seaworthy were hurricane to overtake these vessels while in close proximity to each other, as they ha .l I'M monsters would just go laundering one against the other until the ocean would be strewn with their fragments. Here, then, is the chance for bud ding keeley. Undying fame awaits the man who shall invent motive power capable of raising a bowling storm at sea--some huge floating ma chine which can be wound up to go as you please and pfoduce exactly the same effects on the ocean as a spoon stirred about in a small basin of wa- ter would have on its miniature sur- face and the toy boats sailing thereon. If this idea is oi any use to the United States congress l give it freely, trust ing that ii it is put into practice and A waste of public expenditure on the purchase Of useless warships is there by averted, may not be considered a traitor to the country which claims me as it's own.
 The novels of Rider Haggard are Icing eagerly swallowed, and the Oh- reT TTfsfs of the British public are eagerly asking for more. am afraid W. D. Howells will be disappointed to hear this. It is a sad blow to the insipid, conversational anti-realistic school of writers. Dickens, by the way, is just as popular in England as be was before Howells was heard of. let alone how'led. I was in tho old abbey the other day wherein the great masters dust lies. Standing with bowed head and tear-dimmed eyes where thousands of pilgrim feet have stood, l looked upon his tomb. Lov- ing hands had placed green garlands upon the simple slab above the hal : owed spot and written on piece of paper attached to one of them were the words, "Lord, keep my memory green" It would seem that these words, ALord, keep my memory green" have found an abiding place in the heart of some guardian angel, and % day after day, week after week, year after year, these evergreen tokens